It is common knowledge that porches, entry halls, foyers, and reception areas are useful as places to take off outdoor clothing, such as boots and overcoats, to wipe one's feet, and generally function to help preserve the relative cleanliness or temperature level of interior spaces. The architecture of many, and probably most, cultures perceived and accommodated the need for such a buffer, if you like, between the inside and the outside spaces. Or to express it another way, antechambers, porches, entry halls and the like help shelter the heart of the shelter itself. It addresses the primordial need to prevent tracking in or otherwise admitting into a shelter what the shelter itself is meant to keep out, be it cold, heat, insects, dust, muck, noise, or even unwelcome visitors. The harsher the climatic conditions generally the greater the need for antechambers. Even igloos have them as essential features.
The close association between antechambers proper and stoops, steps or ramps leading up to portals is highly noteworthy. Early in the history or even prehistory of humans it was realized that some of the most significant shelter structures can provide is from below: protecting against cold, damp, ground water, pests, muck, mud, fifth and contagion. The discovery of raised foundations, sub-floors, and flooring typically created a second pressing need at portals: compensating for the unequal level of ground and floored interior space through the use of steps or (increasingly important with the recognition of the importance of access for the physically challenged) ramps. The idea of combining antechambers with such entry steps or ramps occurred early on. Covered porches may serve as a simple example.
Long ago it was realized that creating a series of such chambers offered an excellent strategy for dealing with more potentially harmful elements. Hence clean rooms, isolation rooms for patients with contagious conditions, surgical theatres, and laboratories frequently are equipped with one or more antechambers used for scrub down, dressing areas, et cetera. In even more demanding environments—in space, under water, nuclear laboratories, for example—airlocks comprising a system of antechambers can be critical. In penal and medical settings, where there are high dangers of other kinds, multiple antechambers find frequent employment.
Considered in the abstract, antechamber systems may be described as a series of one or more enclosed spaces or rooms, each with two thresholds or apertures generally on opposite ends, which connect securely to the principal areas of buildings. Shutting devices, in the first instance, swinging or sliding doors or curtains, are usual features at the apertures or doorways, and this allows the selective shutting and opening for ingress and egress. It should be noted that there are times when it is highly advantageous to have both ports to the antechamber closed while some process is run inside a particular chamber before passing into the next. To take a very simple example, vacuuming of dust might be called for in the first antechamber, removal of clothing might be called for in the second antechamber, showering might be called for in a third antechamber, and an initial medical screening take place in the fourth. Notice also that antechamber systems lend themselves to branching. To continue the former example, depending on what the doctors found in the fourth chamber, a patient could be directed to one of several fifth chambers (for isolation, further observation, treatment, or entry to the main shelter), and thus serve very well for triage, for example, during an epidemic or following a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear release or attack.
Up to now, the multiple antechamber systems of which we are all familiar have tended to be permanently designed structural features or ad hoc contrivances, such as curtains, screens, or temporary partitions. This is not to say that transportable structures such as tents or trailers serving as antechambers are unknown. The covered ramps extending to the plane doors found at airports may feature additional doors, for example. Decontamination tent systems have been both described and implemented, and there exists prior art in the specification of auxiliary equipment including blowers and materials. Of course, exploration of outer space, oceans, and the needs of mining, metallurgy, and chemical industries has led to many advancements of design in airlocks and decompression chambers of all types. Unfortunately, few or none of these have been conceived as retrofit units that could be stowed at or near sites where they might be required, but that would not interfere with the normal civilian usage of buildings and not take up excessive space. However, the enormously multiplied dangers posed by chemical, biological and radioactive industrial production toxins, pathogens, and carcinogens, and the burgeoning threat from weapons of mass destruction, have spurred the search for new standby apparatus and procedures in order to extend the inherent advantages of multiple antechamber systems to the general civilian population for its protection in the event of such dreadful scenarios.
Specifically, three key characteristics of systems disclosed herein will be vital to carrying out their intended mission: 1) extreme compacting; 2) capacity for rapid set-up; 3) configurable extensibility. Calling attention to just a few considerations should suffice to demonstrate the utility of structures so endowed. It is widely acknowledged in the scientific community and governing circles that there is high probability of disasters of the kinds mentioned occurring somewhere on earth and affecting large numbers of inhabitants; but there is a low probability of obtaining advanced knowledge that would permit pinpointing either the location or nature of threats before they materialize. This implies that meaningful emergency preparation concentrates on assets which are: a) effectively transportable and deployable in short order and in numbers commensurate with the probable scale of anticipated emergencies; b) of types practical to produce and store in a more widely distributed way; or c) both of the above. Given this context, the value of foldable, expandable devices presented here is compelling.
Planning and preparing to cope with such contingencies, horrible as they certainly are, in the inventor's view deserve the same kind of increased and well-reasoned mobilization as does the on-going effort to prevent their occurrence in the first place. The response to the unsolved anthrax attack after September 2001 suggests that something better than duct tape and vinyl sheeting is required if terror weapons find their way into hands ready or willing to use them. The need to safeguard, even while continuing to use, important but threatened parts of the infrastructure, such as postal centers, that were not originally designed to be protected from such threats, has become ever more apparent. It also points up the importance of developing innovative and effective ways to maintain access to uncontaminated parts of buildings near to where dangerous or lethal releases have occurred, as for examples, in releases from “dirty-bomb” devices or industrial accidents. This constitutes the principle background of the present invention, as well as the firm basis for the belief that it has potential to significantly advance the difficult work of those engaged in civil defense and humanitarian relief work around the world. The surviving stock of standing buildings should rightfully be considered an invaluable resource in the aftermath of many contingencies, but one the value of which is to a large extent dependent on control of contaminants through protection of portals through which the affected populations will need to pass.
Actually, the present invention represents the culmination of a search to find suitable forms of ingress and egress for those who will use the previously referenced, recently patented invention by the same inventor of an all-terrain “FOLDABLE, EXPANDABLE FRAMEWORK FOR A VARIETY OF STRUCTURAL PURPOSES”; the disclosure of previously referenced U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,623 is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Once it was realized that such frameworks opened the prospects for extensive humanitarian rescue and relief public facilities composed of modules each with its potentially separate filtered air supply that could be up and functioning in minutes rather than hours, and not days weeks, it became apparent that for this potential to be tapped in the worst cases involving the most harmful substances or pathogens, special attention would have to be given to discovering ways to properly protect portals of such complexes against lethal contamination. The need for discovering compatible ramps to cope with sick or wounded victims' physical limitations in an emergency likewise drove the inventor's efforts. The inventor fervently hopes and believes that, although the previously granted and presently applied for inventions both have very broad applications beyond their use in conjunction with one another, they will prove very complementary in the arena of preparations for some of the most serious emergencies that humanity must prepare itself to face, even as it strives to the utmost to prevent or deter them from ever occurring or recurring.